


The Bleeding Key

by stellacanta



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, klance end game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 00:27:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13376259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stellacanta/pseuds/stellacanta
Summary: In fact, if Lance didn’t know any better he’d say that the key was bleeding. A bleeding key? Psst, whose ever heard of a key that bled?





	The Bleeding Key

**Author's Note:**

  * For [owlymerlin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owlymerlin/gifts).



Lance sighed as he looked out the window. He dribbled his fingers against his cheek as he watched the gardeners tend to the rose bushes beneath his window.  Urgh, how boring. He sighed out in annoyance and flopped back onto the large bed that he shared with Prince Lotor. Prince Lotor who apparently had to go away on some important trip or whatever.

He pouted at the thought of his husband having to be away from him for a whole entire week. What was he going to do for a whole entire week? He had already invited Pidge and Shiro  _and_  Hunk over and explored the library, the armory,  _and_  the kitchens with them. Then there was Keith who apparently had something better to do than to stay with his best friend for the entire week. Mullet head wasn’t supposed to visit him until the day after tomorrow. The day just before his husband was supposed to come back.

He made a huff of annoyance at the thought of Keith, even as a blush spread across his face. He had begged the other guy to stay with him when Lotor went off on his trip, but the other guy refused the offer. Something about how it wouldn’t be right for him to stay over. How would it not have been right? He extended the invitation to the rest of their friends as well, but Keith only cleared his throat and insisted that it wasn’t right when he told his best bud this.

Of course there was the fact that everyone else had turned him down when he asked, but he wasn’t about to tell Keith this. It hurt a bit that no one wanted to stay with Lance in the big, awesome castle that Prince Lotor had, but Keith turning him down? That stung, a lot.

He closed his eyes and wondered for a moment if his friends found him annoying, and that’s why they didn’t want to stay with him. (The thought hurt more than Keith turning his offer than.)

Lance growled and sat up. Well, fine, if no one wanted to hang out with him, he’d just have his own adventure in this big, beautiful castle that Prince Lotor had. After all, his husband had given him the keys to all the rooms before he left on his trip. He quickly plucked the ring of keys off the bed stand and looked at each of them in turn. The one with the elegant swirls on the top was the key to the library. That angular-looking one was the key to the library. The two plain-ish looking keys in the middle were for the guest bedrooms. The medium-sized key with a coppery sheen lead to what looked to be a ball room. Then there was the key at the end, the smallest one of the ones on the ring. It had no designs and was darker in color than the rest. The one that Prince Lotor had said led to the tiny room at the end of the hallway that he should never enter.

He gulped as he held onto the smallest key. It was cool in his hands. Keith had been the one to find it strange that Prince Lotor forbade him from entering the small room at the end of the hall. His friend had wondered if the prince wasn’t hiding something behind it. In fact, Keith was the only one of his friends to suggest that maybe Lance should just head in when Prince Lotor wasn’t looking. His husband didn’t have any magical powers to tell that the room would had been opened, right? Maybe he could see just what exactly his husband was hiding in that room when he was sleeping?

Besides, if Keith wasn’t going to be here- he gripped the key tighter in his hands as he got off the bed and walked out of the room. Well, it would certainly would make for an interesting story when Keith came over.

Lance’s heartbeats sounded like thunder in his chest as he walked down the hallway to where the tiny door was. Each step he made seemed to be the loudest sound ever. He gulped and stopped halfway down to the room. Everything seemed so loud, it was a wonder that no one had stopped him yet. He turned around, half-afraid there really was someone behind him, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that that halls were empty.

He chuckled to himself and shook his head. Of course, there’d be no one around here, what, did he really think that Prince Lotor had some kind of magical power that let him see what everything was happening? Please, no one had that kind of power. Feeling a bit calmer, or at least just a bit more foolhardy, he continued the rest of the way down the hallway. In his mind, he continued to tell himself that there was nothing to worry about. Most likely his husband had some embarrassing things inside the room that he and Keith would laugh about later. Why else would his husband have a key to a room he was forbidden to enter? He shoved the feeling that he was going to regret this deep into his belly as he inserted the key into the keyhole.

With a click, the door was unlocked. He pushed it in. “Hello?” His words echoed in the dark room as he slowly pushed the door in and walked in. “I’m coming through.” Silence. He blinked as he realized that he couldn’t  _see_ anything in the room. There weren’t any torches on the walls and only the barest of light beams from the hallway was able to get in. “Urgh, of course there’s no one in here. Now, why did I- FUCK WHAT’S THAT!?”

He instinctively took a step backwards and held his arm to protect his face when his eyes caught sight of bloody, beaten face looking right back at him. The face belonged to a girl who looked no older than he did, and it looked like her head had been smashed in with a rock. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he realized that there were dozens of bodies in the room. They were all hanging from the walls in various conditions. Some looked to be merely sleeping, others were barely recognizable as people due to the extent of their injuries. Blood and guts lined the floor and the walls of the room.

His mind barely registered that all of the bodies were female, and that there were just as many bodies as there were former wives of Prince Lotor’s. He bolted out of the room and slammed the door shut. The sound thundered down the hallway as he furiously locked the door and ran back to his room.

Lance leapt onto the bed when he got into his room and buried his face into the pillow. What the fuck had he just seen? Did Prince Lotor really hide the dead bodies of his former wives in his castle like some kind of sick horror movie psycho? Was that really the man that he got himself married to? “Keith- Keith was right.” His best bud always did wonder how his husband’s other wives had died so young. Didn’t Keith ask him if Lance was sure about getting married to Prince Lotor?

He gulped. It was going to be okay. When Keith got there the day after tomorrow he’d talk to him about his options going forward. Besides, Prince Lotor was only supposed to get back at the end of the week, that was plenty of time to talk over his options with Keith.

(Except, a messenger arrived early the next morning to tell him that Prince Lotor was returning home early.)

* * *

Lance fidgeted at the entrance to the castle as the sight of Prince Lotor’s carriage came into view. He cursed to himself and balled his hands into fists. Lance would not let the fact that his husband came back early scare him. Besides, he had already sent a message to Keith letting him know that he might want to bump his visit up to today instead of tomorrow.

He relaxed his hands when the carriage pulled up in front of him and forced himself to smile when Prince Lotor stepped out of the carriage and approached him. “So what brought you back home early? Did you miss me too much or something?”

His husband only smirked before he pulled Lance into a bear hug. One that Lance forced himself to accept and relax into. “Something like that. How have you been since I was away? Amusing yourself appropriately?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. I invited all my friends over and we explored the library and the armory and the-“

“Sounds exciting. You shall have to tell me more about your adventures.” Prince Lotor released the hug and guided him back into the castle. “But first, did you have those ring of keys that I gave you at the start of my trip?”

“The ring of- of course I do! Here.” Lance handed over the ring to his husband. He ignored the chill that ran up his spine and how his hands were starting to sweat. He watched as his husband frowned and picked through each key on the ring. The frown deepened when he found one of the keys was missing, the smallest one.

“Ah, you seem to be missing a key. Did you lose it or-“

“Oh! The tiny one at the end? Nah, I didn’t lose it. I took it off because I didn’t want anyone to accidentally open the door at the end of the hallway. You know, the one you said never to open? Yeah, I hid it in the bedroom, so if you’ll wait a bit I’ll be out and-“

“-I’ll come with you.” Lance stopped and watched his husband in confusion. A grin spread over Prince Lotor’s face, one that seemed more threatening than kind. “After all, it wouldn’t do for someone to have taken the key from your hiding spot now would it?”

“N-no, but do you really think that someone would go so far as to steal it?” The question was left unanswered as the pair walked up the stairs and through the halls to the bedroom. Lance couldn’t help but notice that Prince Lotor closed the door behind him as he went to find the key that was hidden beneath the mattress of their shared bed.

He pulled it out and couldn’t help but notice the thing was wet with blood. He stared at it for a moment and rubbed a thumb over it. Yep, that was definitely blood, and, nope, it was not coming off. In fact, if Lance didn’t know any better he’d say that the key was bleeding. A bleeding key? Psst, whose ever heard of a key that bled?

He affixed a wide smile to his face as he sat up and walked over to hand the key over to his husband. “See, you big worry wart, no one’s taken the key. There, uh, seems to be a bit ketchup over the thing though. Guess I wasn’t careful in- urk!” Lance was caught by surprised when Prince Lotor grabbed him by the throat and threw him into the wall. He wheezed and felt himself being suspended in air, the hands around his throat getting tighter and tighter. (Well, if he had known that this was the way things would have turn out, he should have thrown the key in Prince Lotor’s face and high-tailed it out the window shouldn’t he?)

“You!” Anger burned in Prince Lotor’s violet eyes as Lance struggled and kicked within his husband’s grasp. “You opened the door I specifically told you not to open did you not? After all that I have done for you, a poor boy from the village? I give you everything you could have wished for and this is how you repay me?”

Lance didn’t deny the accusation. There was no point to denying them. He wheezed and tried to get as much air into his lungs as his hands scrabbled to pry off Prince Lotor’s hands. “Is this how- is this how you killed the others?” The hands around his throat only seemed to tighten even more and he choked.

“This is how I will kill you.”

Lance was about to accept death when a cry echoed from the courtyard beneath their room. “Hey Lance! I’m here! Where are you?” Prince Lotor let go of him and he dropped to the ground, desperately gasping for breath. Keith, mullet head, best friend a guy could ever ask for, what great timing.

He looked up to Prince Lotor from the ground. “I asked him to come. If he doesn’t seem me, he’s going to think that something’s happened and you’re going to be in a lot of trouble mister.”

Prince Lotor only growled in frustration as he opened the door. “You have ten minutes. Send him away, or I’ll be sure to kill the both of you.” Lance could only grimace in response as he got up from the floor and raced down to the courtyard.

Keith turned to look at him when he heard the sound of footsteps. “There you are, I thought that- wait, are you okay?”

Lance didn’t respond and pulled Keith into a close embrace. One that looked almost intimate from the outside. He leaned over to whisper in his best friend’s ear. “Are Hunk and Shiro coming?”

Keith blinked in response. “Are Hunk and Shiro- Lance why would Hunk and Shiro be coming? You look like you’re out of breath, dude, do you want me to go and get someone-“

Lance shook his head. “Sorry, no time. I could have sworn I saw their horses and anything.” He leaned back to look Keith straight in the eyes. “Whatever happens to me, I want you to run. You were right about the Prince and his ex-wives.”

“Whatever happens to-“ Keith placed his hands on Lance’s upper arms and pushed the lankier of the two back a bit. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you Lance. Did Prince Lotor actually kill his ex-wives? Well, I’m not going to let you be the first ex-husband he ends up having.”

“And what do you think you’re going to do up against him huh?” Lance peaked around Keith’s head. “Are you sure Hunk and Shiro aren’t coming? ‘Cause those horses definitely look like theirs, and the men riding them? Yeah, those definitely look like Hunk and Shiro.”

“Will you shut up about Hunk and Shiro!? They’re not coming, so let’s think of a plan and-“ Keith gulped when he noticed Prince Lotor step out of the castle with a sword in his hands.

“Keith,” the prince said upon noticing him. “What a pleasant surprise. Lance was just saying that he had invited you over. Now won’t you join us for some tea and a bit of sparring?”

“Yeah I don’t-“ A rock whizzed by both their heads and hit Prince Lotor square in the forehead. The prince raged and glared at the pair of riders that came into view.

“-Take that you evil son of a-“

“-language!”

“Oops! Sorry Shiro.”  

“The cavalry is here!” Lance beamed as both Hunk and Shiro dismounted and proceeded to make short work of Prince Lotor. “I told you they would be coming.”

“Yeah, you did, but how did they-“ Keith was cut off by Lance kissing him. Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Hunk giving him a thumbs up as he slowly began to kiss back.

(And they lived happily ever after. Prince Lotor? Not so much.)


End file.
